WITH POLL: Group delivers protest letter to Raynham Walmart

Coinciding with labor action against Wal-Mart that was held around the country during Black Friday, a group of area residents visited the company’s Raynham store to deliver a letter of protest.

Marc Larocque

Coinciding with labor action against Wal-Mart that was held around the country during Black Friday, a group of area residents visited the company’s Raynham store to deliver a letter of protest.

The protest didn’t feature any chants or signs. Instead about a dozen people showed up to give the letter to a manager at the store, urging it to be sent up the chain of command of the Wal-Mart corporation. The letter encourages the retailer to increase wages, adopt regular schedules for workers and to allow workers to speak out without fear of retaliation.

“As the largest retailer and employer in our country, Wal-Mart has considerable power to help rebuild our economy and restore the promise of the American Dream,” said the letter, which was addressed to Wal-Mart chairman Rob Walton. “Wal-Mart can change its business practices, in partnership with your employees, to create a stronger country and economy for all of us — beginning with changes that will improve the lives of workers and their families across the country.”

The protest was attended by members of a Massachusetts chapter of the national Jobs With Justice network, and others who heard about the action through MoveOn.org and other websites. The protest was promoted by OUR Wal-Mart, a group affiliated the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which has previously worked to unionize Wal-Mart employees.

The protest was among 1,000 planned for Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend by OUR Wal-Mart, which stands for Organizations United for Respect at Wal-Mart.

There were no Wal-Mart workers involved in the Raynham protest, but OUR Wal-Mart spokesperson Jason Stephany said that many workers are concerned about retaliation from the company if they speak out.

Stephany added that 100 Walmart locations had outright employee strikes.
Stephany said there was some form of protest, whether in person or online, organized for 48 Walmarts in Massachusetts.

Nadine Dyen was among the dozen protesters who visited the Walmart location in Raynham to deliver the letter at 10 a.m. on Friday. She said the group was composed of mostly people in their late 50s and 60s.

“The managers at Walmart that we talked to were very nice,” said Dyen, of Raynham. “We just wanted to get our message across in a nice way. I think we did that. So we’ll see what happens.”

Dyen said that members of the group did a little shopping at Walmart before delivering the letter. The protest letter highlighted that Walmart store associates receive an average of $8.81 an hour, with slashed health care benefits, while the company made almost $16 billion in profits and executives made more than $10 million each in compensation last year.

“We just purchased some things, people wanted to do that,” Dyen said. “There was no chanting or signs, just a group of concerned local citizens, plain old people like me. ... I am a mother. I have grown children in the working world and I wouldn’t want them to be employed under those conditions.”

Dyen said she became concerned once hearing on the news in October about unsafe working conditions at some Walmart stores in warmer weather states that lacked ceiling fans.

Responding to a request for comment on the protest, Wal-Mart provided a public statement from its vice president of corporate communications, David Tovar.

“The number of protests being reported by the UFCW are grossly exaggerated,” Tovar said. “We are aware of a few dozen protests at our stores today. The number of associates that have missed their scheduled shift today is more than 60 percent less than Black Friday last year.”

Tovar said that OUR Wal-Mart and UFCW don’t speak for the store’s employees.

“It was proven last night — and again today — that the OUR Wal-Mart group doesn’t speak for the 1.3 million Wal-Mart associates,” Tovar said. “We had our best Black Friday ever and OUR Wal-Mart was unable to recruit more than a small number of associates to participate in these made for TV events. Press reports are now exposing what we have said all along — the large majority of protesters aren’t even Wal-Mart workers.”

Edwin Argueta, of Everett, also attended the protest letter delivery in Raynham, saying that the goal is to send a strong message to the company to do the right thing by its employees.

“Wal-Mart sets the standard for a really critical industry, the retail industry, in the U.S.,” said Argueta, who is a staff person for Jobs with Justice in Massachusetts. “Whatever Wal-Mart does everybody else follows. When we are talking about good jobs, we need to have a conversation about what is the living wage and what does the employer allow you to do in terms of health care. The problem is that the Wal-Mart business model doesn’t allow that to happen. It allows the CEO and administrative leadership to make millions and millions of dollars.”

Argueta said there are also small things that Wal-Mart can also do for its employees to improve conditions for workers, like ensuring employees are given regular schedules, with hours that they can count on.

“Something simple like giving me a schedule for the whole week, something simple as that,” Argueta said. “It’s been one of the most consistent problems.”

Argueta said that Wal-Mart employees are now becoming empowered to ask for more of their employer.

“The workers are realizing, we have power too,” Argueta said. “We are going to be there to support them.”